


Holding On

by ilcuoreardendo



Series: Supernatural Bites [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Comment Fic, Gen, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilcuoreardendo/pseuds/ilcuoreardendo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Winchester stands in her doorway looking not unlike he did the first time she met him: scuffed, dirty, and in need of a shave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding On

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Livejournal's Comment-Fic community. 
> 
> Prompt "in between tears, she still manages to look outraged and pissed off." Originally posted at my [Tumblr](http://ilcuoreardendo-fic.tumblr.com).

* * *

 

John Winchester stands in her doorway looking not unlike he did the first time she met him: scuffed, dirty, and in need of a shave. Only this time instead of the wild-eyed look of grief and the stern set of jaw that identified a man on a mission, his eyes are downcast and his mouth is slack after spewing so many empty words.

It was a jumbled explanation. She still can’t seem to fit it together in her head. Her husband cannot be dead.

But John’s twisting his fingers around the hilt of a small, iron knife. She knows that knife. And she knows Bill would’ve never let it out of his sight.

“Get out.”

“Ellen…”

“There’s nothing you can say that’ll make this better, John. So. Just. Get. Out.”

Hunters, as a general rule, don’t know when to quit. But John looks at her face and backs away, placing the knife on the bar before he turns and slips out the Roadhouse’s front door.

Ellen waits until the Impala’s engine is a distant rumble and then she goes into the bathroom and vomits.

When she’s empty and the dry heaves have stopped, she stands in front of the sink, runs cool water along her wrists, her temples, and looks at her reflection in the mirror. If this is half of what John saw, it’s no wonder he listened to her and left.

She is worn and wrung out and with the ache in her bones and deep in her chest, could swear she’s aged twenty years in the last ten minutes. But her eyes are bright, sharp and clear, washed clean from weeping. There’s a set to her mouth that she remembers seeing on her own mama’s lips the night the police showed up at the door to tell her daddy had wrapped his truck around a tree.

Back then she didn’t understand, couldn’t identify why mama had looked so angry one moment, so unmoved the next. Because this is not just anger. One emotion is not enough for a moment like this. It’s anger coupled with sorrow. Outrage mingling with grief. And, skirting the edges of her psyche, the fine tremble of her mouth, forbearance.

Because she’s always known that it would end…well, perhaps not like  _this_. But  _thing_  or  _human_  doesn’t really make a difference when the outcome is the same.

And she takes a deep, shaking breath and holds on as the bathroom door swings in and Jo, six years old and just waking from a nap on this too long, too hot, too memorable summer day, pads in. 

“Momma?”

She holds on to it all, that restraint, that anger, that cold control. Because she can’t count on sorrow and grief to shore her up, see her through what’s to come. 

 

 

 


End file.
